KARACHI, Mar 20 (IPS) – Justice Zafar Yab Chadhar’s March 6 order sentencing 22-year-old Junaid Munir to ‘be hanged by his neck until he’s lifeless’ on costs of sharing blasphemous materials over WhatsApp was devastating for his household.
“The earth moved from beneath my ft,” is how 57-year-old Chaudhry Munir Hussain, Munir’s father, described his emotions as he heard the decide learn out the judgment that day in a courtroom in Gujranwala, a metropolis in Punjab province.
“My daughter collapsed and fell down on the ground there after which,” stated Hussain, including, “She was unable to sit down for her civil providers examination,” that was happening across the time. He was speaking from Tokyo, the place he’s staying. He has lived between Pakistan and Japan for the previous 30 years, working an “import-export automobile enterprise in Japan.” However this time he had fled Pakistan, believing his life was underneath menace.
Blasphemy is an offense with an unwaivable dying penalty however is notoriously recognized for use to hold out private vendettas.
So far, nobody has been executed, but scores proceed to be convicted after which languish in jail. Information offered by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) exhibits there are 587 prisoners in varied jails throughout Punjab. Amongst these, 515 are underneath trial, together with 508 male, six feminine, and one juvenile prisoner, all confined underneath blasphemy.
The momentum has gained. In 2023 alone, stated CSJ, at the least 329 folks have been accused of blasphemy. Of those, 247 (75%) have been Muslims, 65 Ahmadis (the Pakistani structure has declared them non-Muslims), 11 Christians, and one Hindu. The spiritual affiliation of the remaining 5 stays unknown. Punjab was essentially the most affected province, the place 179 have been accused.
A minimum of 2,449 folks had been accused of blasphemy between 1987 and 2023. The very best variety of accused have been 1,279 Muslims, adopted by 782 Ahmadis. The very best variety of instances (1770) have been reported in Punjab (72%), in keeping with the CSJ.
The signed and stamped ‘warrant’ on Munir, despatched to the superintendent in Gujranwala’s Central Jail by the decide, quoted right here verbatim, states movies and images confirmed “writing most sacred identify of the Holy Prophet Hazrat Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) and the kalma on intercourse a part of human our bodies with intention to defile the Holy identify of the Holy Prophet (PBUH)”.
It added that it was finished deliberately and intentionally with the intent to “outrage the spiritual feeling of Muslims”.
The accusation perplexes Hussain.
“We’re religious Muslims belonging to the Barelvi Sunni sect. There are verses etched on the entrance of my home, paying homage to Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him). For over 40 years, my household has been serving the neighborhood mosque and sweeping its flooring, which we think about an honorable responsibility. We illuminate the complete lane yearly to have a good time the Prophet’s delivery. Do you assume we’d ever defame him?” Hussain tried to cause. He stated his son has been falsely accused and framed on this severe cost. “I brook no enmity with anybody,” including cautiously, “There are individuals who wish to pay money for our property for a really very long time.”
In keeping with the neighborhood dwelling in his village, Hussain belonged to a humble background, however his enterprise picked up and he did extraordinarily properly, which can have precipitated jealousies.
“Nonetheless, I went to those that had accused my son, fell on their ft and apologized to them on behalf of my son if he had damage their sentiments,” stated Hussain. “I even obtained fatwas from completely different spiritual seminaries that stated an individual will be forgiven.”
“Wherever there’s even a slight little bit of doubt, confusion, or the case shouldn’t be clear-cut, one ought to discover a center floor,” in keeping with Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi, chairman of the Pakistan Ulema Council (PUC), speaking over the cellphone from Islamabad. Through the years, the council has intervened in 103 out of 114 instances which have come to its consideration, and the accused has been saved from the wrath of individuals.
Ashrafi had additionally been a part of one other high-profile case the place Junaid Jamshed, a pop singer turned in style spiritual scholar, was accused of blasphemy however later acquitted.
Having seen the fabric despatched allegedly by Munir, which he discovered “extraordinarily obscene,” and being aware about the investigation, Ashrafi stated, “The FIA had investigated this totally and I don’t assume anybody is framing the boy.”
“I might assume the FIA ought to have the technical capability and the assets to discern, decipher, and confirm individuals who impersonate different folks’s pages and perform blasphemy, or deepfake and AI-generated content material,” stated Nighat Dad, heading the Digital Rights Foundation, including her group’s expertise with the FIA’s cybercrime wing had proven they’re adept at dealing with cyber harassment.
Munir, a first-year regulation pupil, was arrested on June 15, 2022, from Lahore by the FIA’s cybercrime wing, underneath anti-blasphemy legal guidelines within the Pakistan Penal Code, 1980. His case was later shifted to Gujranwala on the course of the Lahore Excessive Court docket, with express orders that the trial be accomplished inside two months. However it took the courtroom two years to convict him.
“The final two years have been like a thousand years for me,” stated Hussain. “Our lives have been ruined by these merciless folks.”
Munir has additionally been charged underneath cybercrime laws, the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA), 2016, termed a draconian regulation by human rights defenders.
Farieha Aziz, a cybercrime skilled and co-founder of Bolo Bhi, an advocacy discussion board for digital rights, stated: “Varied sections of PECA 2016 criminalize speech in an extreme and overly broad method and have been used routinely towards journalists, lecturers, and political employees every so often.” PECA, she stated, has anti-speech, anti-privacy, and anti-Web provisions.
“It’s not unusual for folks to be booked for alleged blasphemy on-line,” stated Aziz. We now have seen how malicious on-line campaigns have been run towards activists up to now, labelling them as blasphemers or pushing for them to be booked underneath the blasphemy regulation the place no such offense has been dedicated however that is used to silence them by placing a goal on an individual’s again, which has offline penalties and endangers their life.”
Lawyer Mohammad Jibran Nasir and Dr Arfana Mallah, affiliate professors on the College of Sindh, in Jamshoro, have had their share of shut requires talking in assist of alleged blasphemers.
However the larger concern, stated Aziz, was that “accounts are hacked or impersonation accounts put out materials” that’s not by the accused. And even earlier than that’s established, the latter is booked.
“Increasing using blasphemy instances towards folks for what they are saying or share on social media is an invite for witch hunts,” acknowledged Patricia Gossman, Affiliate Asia Director at Human Rights Watch, in a dispatch. “The Pakistani authorities ought to amend and in the end repeal its blasphemy legal guidelines, not additional prolong their scope on-line,” stated the assertion.
Dad admitted: “Expertise will be extraordinarily dangerous, particularly the place the regulation imposing businesses should not so properly outfitted.”
However this isn’t the primary time.
In 2014, a Christian couple was sentenced to dying for sending a blasphemous textual content message in English to their native cleric. The couple denied it, saying they have been illiterate and didn’t know the language. In 2016, a Christian named Nadeem James was sentenced to dying for sending a poem to a Muslim buddy that insulted Islam and 30-year-old Taimoor Raza was sentenced to dying after getting right into a sectarian debate about Islam on Fb with a person who was a counter-terrorism official.
Then there’s the case of Junaid Hafeez, a lecturer on the Bahahuddin Zakariya College in Multan, a metropolis in Punjab, who has been imprisoned since 2001 after being accused of importing blasphemous materials over Fb by a pupil. His lawyer, Rashid Rehman, was murdered in 2014.
Extra just lately, Aneeqa Atiq, 26, was sentenced to dying by a courtroom in Rawalpindi in 2022 for allegedly sharing blasphemous materials through WhatsApp.
When not imprisoned, those that have been marked are sometimes killed by the folks. In 2017, Mashal Khan, a pupil at Abdul Wali Khan College in Mardan, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, was overwhelmed to dying by college students accusing him of posting blasphemous materials over social media. An investigation later proved he was harmless. Final yr, seven folks have been killed extrajudicially. From 1994 to 2023, 95 folks have been lynched.
“We have additionally seen campaigns focusing on activists preventing for any change within the blasphemy regulation and know the way deadly these will be, resulting in the lack of lives, as we noticed with Salman Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti for proposing amendments and reforms to the nation’s blasphemy legal guidelines,” stated Aziz.
To date, just one particular person has ever been punished: Mumtaz Qadri, the bodyguard of Governor Salman Taseer for killing his employer. Qadri was hanged for killing the governor in 2016.
Earlier this month, in a courageous try, a younger policewoman, Shehrbano Naqvi, averted mob lynching of a girl carrying garments that had Arabic calligraphy written on them, which individuals thought have been verses from the Quran. Following the incident, the CSJ issued a press release calling for motion to deal with “the failings within the current legal guidelines and looming spiritual intolerance.”
“My son is affected by a really uncommon illness referred to as immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), an autoimmune dysfunction,” implored the anxious father. “He’s simply pores and skin and bones underneath the khaki-colored jail uniform. It breaks my coronary heart to see my youngster, who retains insisting he’s harmless,” stated Hussain in a heavy voice. He stated he’s going to attraction his son’s sentence within the Lahore Excessive Court docket this week.
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